Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Listening to Joshua Bell

Life experiences have a way of sticking with us and making it difficult to
Live in Truth unless we consciously make a decision to do so. Every moment in
our lives is new, but because of past life experiences we often miss what is
being given to us in the present moment. An amazing experiment done in January 2007
exemplifies this.

Gene Weingarten, a journalist with The Washington Post enlisted the help of the
world famous violinist, Joshua Bell. Bell dressed like a street musician and played several violin pieces in the L’Enfant Plaza Metro subway station in Washington, D.
C. for forty-five minutes. The proceedings were videotaped on a hidden camera (see it here) and revealed that of the 1,097 people who passed by, only seven
stopped to listen and only one of those recognized him. During that forty-five
minutes Bell collected $52.17 from twenty-eight people, twenty dollars of it from
the woman who recognized him. The night before people had paid more than $52 per person to listen to him play in concert!

The question we have to ask ourselves is what would we have done if we had
been one of the 1,097 people? Would we have assumed that since it wasn't a concert hall and since the man was dressed in rags this couldn't possible be worth listening to? Would we have let past experiences with “street people”
taint our present experience? Or would we have been alive and alert to the
present moment and accepted the gift of music offered to us?

In Seattle recently I realized that this is one area of Living in Truth I need to work on. While walking along the wharf, I encountered a Polynesian woman sitting on some stairs
with several plastic shopping bags surrounding her. She was singing in her
native tongue what sounded to me like a folksong, but as I passed she stopped singing and
commented on how hot it was and offered me a bottle of cold water. Assuming
that she was selling the water and probably for an exorbitant price, I smiled,
declined, and hurried on. A few minutes later Mr. J, lagging behind me because he had been taking pictures, encountered the woman and stopped, engaged her in conversation, and took the water offered. He tried to pay her for
it but she refused any recompense and sent him on his way with warm wishes for
a good day.

Since it really was a hot, humid day, and not having any water with me I could have
used the cold water the woman offered, but like the 1,090 people who refused to stop and listen
to Joshua Bell, I refused the refreshment because of my prejudices and
assumptions.

I'm working on it! Every moment is new and we will never know what wonderful things are being offered to us if we look at the present moment through eyes of the past.